Subject: NBA Southeast Division

• Can't Beat the Patsies? Join 'Em

  Second-half Suns need to ramp it up

  February 5, 2009

• King-Size Losers

  January 29, 2009

• Phoenix Suns vs. Washington Wizards

  March 19, 2009

• SHAQ'S FLACKS ARE WAY OFF TRACK

  March 16, 1994

• Hot Links: Obama Out-Debates McCain, Arpaio's Goons Target Mesa Library, Stone's W. Shows Bush as Party Boy.

  October 16, 2008

• The Heat Is On: Miami and Shawn Marion Visit the Suns Tonight

  Rewind, for a moment, to the 2005-06 NBA season. The Miami Heat visit the Phoenix Suns in a marquee matchup. Talk of a future NBA Finals series between the two powerhouses flood the sports talk airwaves. But despite Shaquille O'Neal's (playing for Miami at the time) team-leading 13 rebounds, the Suns pull off a relatively seamless 111-93 victory at U.S. Airways Center. (The Heat wound up holding up its end of the deal, beating the Dallas Mavericks, who killed the Suns' season, for the NBA c

  November 28, 2008

• Steve Nash Booed: Phoenix Suns Lose to Two Mediocre Opponents Over the Weekend

  Two loses to two terrible-to-mediocre teams in the past two games. In fact, the Phoenix Suns are 2-2 against such opponents in the past four games. Did we mention that Amare Stoudemire got two technical fouls, the latter of which put him in the locker room and pretty much assured a Suns 117-109 loss to the 9-7 New Jersey Nets on Sunday night? That and 21 turnovers, one of which drew boos from the crowd at US Airways Center. The culprit: Steve Nash, the two-time NBA Most Valu

  December 1, 2008

• Suns Trade Raja Bell and Boris Diaw to Charlotte for Slam-Dunk Champ Jason Richardson, Et Al

  Finally, the Suns got rid of tentative Boris Diaw -- then they threw in defensive-minded Raja Bell for good mearure. At least, these were the name players the team jettisoned to acquire talented two-guard Jason Richardson (pictured after a dunk) from the Charlotte Bobcats. The 6-foot-6 Richardson is a far better offensive player than either Bell or Diaw, averaging 18.8 points a game. But his defense is suspect -- which makes us wonder how he will fit into Suns Coac

  December 10, 2008

• Jason Richardson Profile: Newest Sun Expected to Make Debut Against Magic Tonight

  Phoenix Suns fans: Here's a quick-and-dirty introduction to the team's newest member, Jason Richardson, who was acquired in Wednesday's five-player trade that sent Raja Bell and Boris Diaw to the Charlotte Bobcats.

  December 12, 2008

• Prodigal Sun: Mike D'Antoni Returns Tonight When His Knicks Take on Richardson-Revitalized Phoenix

    So, when Mike D'Antoni leads his New York Knicks out of the tunnel and onto the hardwood at the Purple Palace, will you boo him or will you cheer him? What's the etiquette for a man who abandoned a listing ship? Sure, following the Suns' first-round playoff ouster by the San Antonio Spurs last season, the former Suns head coach bailed in favor of the Big Apple, but he did it nicely enough. He asked first, in an I'm-telling-you kinda way. And Suns General Manager Steve Kerr -- the

  December 15, 2008

• Bear Market: Phoenix Suns at Memphis Grizzlies Tonight

  The Boston Celtics bought themselves an NBA Championship in 2007-08. The Los Angeles Lakers nearly stole one by snookering away the rights to All-Star forward Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies last February 1 for the NBA equivalent of nothing. Oh, Memphis Coach Marc Iavaroni, a former Suns assistant, called Marc Gasol (pictured), Pau's younger brother, the key to the trade. Whatever you say, Marc. Phoenix Suns fans spent the remainder of the season gnashing their teeth and hatching cons

  December 30, 2008

• Shaq Dominates Again: Suns Beat Fading Atlanta Hawks 103-98

    It was Shaquille O'Neal's night again -- and thank God for it! Without him, the Suns would've lost to the Atlanta Hawks, who led the game at US Airways Center late in the fourth quarter before a Suns spurt. O'Neal had 26 points and 10 rebounds in 40 minutes against the 22-15 Hawks, who these days feature former Shadow Mountain High School and Arizona Wildcats phenom Mike Bibby at point guard. The former Sacramento Kings star had 17 points -- and along with forwar

  January 14, 2009

• Wolf Trap: Phoenix Suns vs. Minnesota Timberwolves Here Tonight

  A mid-January game against the Minnesota Timberwolves is no big D, right? The playoffs-bound Phoenix Suns will ring up these bottom-feeding fools without stainin' their sweats, yo? Wrong on both counts. And that "playoff-bound" part is dicey, in and of itself. Everyone but the Suns seems to realize that every win's gonna count in '08-'09. But while Phoenix is handing out freebies to the mediocre likes of Indiana and struggling against true-blue losers like Oklahoma City, eight other West

  January 16, 2009

• Suns Battle Old Pals Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and Joe Johnson in Charlotte Tonight and Atlanta Sunday

  Charlotte's Boris Diaw in his strange new role: starter. If Charlotte were Philly, the Phoenix Suns would be wise to beware of flying alkaline batteries and half-filled beer cups when they take the court against the Bobcats at Time Warner Cable Arena at 5 p.m. tonight. But North Carolina's still part of the genteel South, and that's good news for Suns head coach Terry Porter and company, 'cause our fair city has not been kind to poor, put-upon Charlotte of late. (Neither has the economy

  January 23, 2009

• Think Times Are Hard for the Suns? Try Loving the Washington Wizards, Phoenix's Opponent Tonight.

  In 2004-05, the Washington Wizards boasted the NBA's most fearsome backcourt. Led by ex-UA Wildcat standout Gilbert Arenas, Antwan Jamison, and Larry Hughes, Washington earned a modest forty-five victories in the regular season, but turned heads during the NBA Playoffs with its first-round conquest of the Chicago Bulls (before being swept by the Miami Heat). That was so four years ago, dude.

  January 26, 2009

• Suns Redeem Themselves vs. Atlanta After Stinking Against Charlotte

  The Phoenix Suns longest road trip of the year was a disaster -- until the Big Three (no, not those Big Three) found a way to win against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday. We're talking about Steve Nash, Amar'e Stoudemire, and Shaquille O'Neal. Nash played so brilliantly against the Hawks that we'll forgive him his six turnovers (the team had 19). After all, he'd been suffering from his chronically bad back for the past three games. Nash made great passes all game long and wound

  January 26, 2009

• Good Riddance: Terry Porter's Officially Fired, but Could it be Shaq Who Now Goes Instead of Amar'e?

  Well, it's official. Phoenix Suns head coach Terry Porter was fired today and replaced (on an interim basis) with long-time Phoenix assistant and former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Alvin Gentry (pictured). "I hired Terry because I believed he would be able to provide the balance our team needed in order to perform at a very high level. Unfortunately the transition from last season to this one proved to be very difficult, and we have not played to our potential. It's imperative

  February 16, 2009

• Apocalypse Diaw: Phoenix Suns Host Boris, Charlotte Bobcats Tonight

  www.nba.com Boris Diaw ain't all that. Last Thursday, in one blink of Amar'e Stoudemire's bum eye, the Phoenix Suns' playoff chances took a sucker punch to the gut. Most people's first thought: "Oh. Crap." Most people's second thought: "Oh. Crap. We traded away Boris Diaw." Our second thought: "Oh. Crap. Most people are gonna say we shouldn't have traded away Boris Diaw." Sure enough, last Friday's local sports-radio airwaves were a-buzz with revisionist invective from fans who thought

  February 24, 2009

• Phoenix Suns Hold Off Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and the Charlotte Hornets 112-102

  There were hugs all around, before Tuesday night's game got started and after the final buzzer. Raja Bell and Boris Diaw seemed happy to be back home in Phoenix, even if they are now starters for head coach Larry Brown's Charlotte Bobcats. So much so that they were the high scorers in the game: Bell had 23 points and Diaw had 27 and 10 rebounds. There were times when we thought their passion might allow the 22-35 Bobcats to overtake the 32-24 Suns and win at US Airways C

  February 25, 2009

• Orange Crushed: Suns Fall in La-La Land, Meet Lakers Again Sunday, Toronto Tonight

  www.nba.com Lamar Odom: "The Goods" played out of his skull in L.A. last night. For a precious few minutes  in the first quarter of last night's Suns/Lakers game in La-La Land, the Suns held their own against the NBA's best. No, it was better than that. They were rolling, running, gunning, roaring. They were taking advantage of someone else's defensive miscues for a (pleasant) change. And with literally only 2.5 first-teamers on the floor, they were doing the unthinkable: winnin

  February 27, 2009

• Shaq Has His Biggest Weekend Since He was With L.A., as the Phoenix Suns Crush Toronto and Beat the Lakers

  Shaq played like he was this kid's age over the weekend.What a weekend for Planet Orange, and its largest inhabitant! We're beginning to think of the Phoenix Suns as a planet again, after back-to-back victories against the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Lakers at US Airways Center Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Shaquille O'Neal's certainly big enough to be Jupiter, and his performances over the weekend were cosmic. On Friday night, he had his best game as a Su

  March 2, 2009

• Peter Pan in Converse: Shaq and the Suns Face D-Wade's Miami Heat Tonight

  www.nba.com Dwyane Wade has returned to top form. That's bad news for Suns fans, good news for fans of the game. On tap tonight in Miami: basketball at its most poetic and primal. Heat shooting guard Dwyane Wade, the NBA's most elegant player, will provide the athletic iambic pentameter. A couple of aging but still dominant alpha bulls named O'Neal -- the Heat's Jermaine, the Suns Shaquille -- will bang their wide bodies in the paint. It'll be lovely and brutal and, regardless of the

  March 4, 2009

• Phoenix Suns Continue Skid, Losing to D. Wade and the Miami Heat, 135-129

  allposters.com Those were the days, my friend. Shaq and D. Wade after their 2006 NBA titleTwo of Shaquille O'Neal's old teams on the road in two nights. Two losses. Tuesday night, it was to the Orlando Magic, and Wednesday it was to Dwayne Wade, Shaq's brother in arms in the 2006 NBA championship, and the Miami Heat. It wasn't Shaq's fault that the Phoenix Suns lost to the Heat by 6 points, dropping even deeper into ninth place in the Western Conference playoff race. He had 22

  March 5, 2009

• Player Hater: Phoenix Suns Need to Channel Shaq's Aggro to Win on the Road This Weekend

  www.nba.com As the saying goes, "Don't hate the player, hate the game." Well, considering the current tongue-lashing dished out by Shaquille O'Neal at Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy, the hate is all-encompassing for the Suns' big man. The triggering episode occurred Tuesday night in Orlando during Phoenix's 111-99 loss. During the game, Magic center Dwight Howard elbowed Shaq in the chest. The Suns center flopped worse than his 1998 album Respect. Van Gundy, who coached O'Neal for a

  March 6, 2009

• Math Test: Phoenix Suns Face Must-Win Game Against Dallas Mavericks Tonight

  www.nba.com Dirk Nowitzki: Could another choke job be forthcoming? By the time a must-win game for the Phoenix Suns rolls around, we're usually breaking out the sunscreen and decorating the Maypole. This year, desperation's come early. In the race for the Western Conference playoffs, the Suns sit in ninth place in an eight-team sprint following their disastrous 0-4 road swing through Orlando, Miami, Houston, and San Antonio. The team in eighth, the Dallas Mavericks, leads the Suns by fo

  March 10, 2009

• Leandro Barbosa Injured in Phoenix Suns' Impressive Win Over Philadelphia 76ers

  www.nba.comLeandro Barbosa takes a sickening spill. Just when you thought the Phoenix Suns' luck was improving, another player gets injured. This time it happened at the end of the first quarter of the Suns' game against the Philadelphia 76ers when Leandro Barbosa went down with a hyper-extended left knee. It was sickening even to watch, but a preliminary examination determined that there was no joint or ligament damage. What this means about the Brazilian Blur's availablity for the rest of the

  March 19, 2009

• Suns Host Antawn Jamison and Washington Wizards on Saturday

  www.nba.comAntawn Jamison The Dallas Mavericks haven't exactly placed a foot on the Phoenix Suns' throat and stood upright with all of their weight during the battle for the eighth and final playoff spot. See a 119-110 loss to the Golden State Warriors on March 13, a team that the Suns stomped 154-130 on March 15. So instead of obsessing for hours watching online game casts of Mavericks games or racking your brain with complicated formulas on playoff positioning (by the way, it's really just

  March 20, 2009

• Phoenix Suns vs. Toronto Raptors

  February 26, 2009

• Boris Di-Ow

  Suns need to put former teammate on his tush

  February 19, 2009

• All-Star Schedule

  February 12, 2009

• On the Eve of the NBA All-Star Game, Phoenix Suns Players Show Off Their Tattoo Canvases

  February 12, 2009

• Phoenix Suns vs. Miami Heat

  November 27, 2008

• Inner Booty

  Wouldn’t it feel good to own Kobe’s butt for one more afternoon?

  November 20, 2008

• Bank Shot

  October 16, 2008

• Preseason's Greetings

  October 2, 2008

• Let 'Em Eat Cupcake

  February 7, 2008

• Phoenix Suns vs. Atlanta Hawks at U.S. Airways Center

  January 24, 2008

• Pass the Blowtorch

  November 29, 2007

• Girl's Night In

  Who needs friends? It's the Suns, man.

  November 29, 2007

• This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

  December 9, 2004

• Never Mind the 'Ballers

  October 28, 2004

• Flashes

  December 12, 1996

• Hot Links: Coyotes, Dogs in Heat, and Dead Sharks in the Road

  A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that the city of Glendale must reveal records by Friday that show what incentives it's offering to a new owner of the Phoenix Coyotes ice hockey team. Among the potential team buyers are Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and Daryl Jones of Research Edge LLC...A teenage boy visiting Valley relatives from Alaska died Monday after suffering a heat stroke while on a hike at South Mountain Park on Sunday. The temperature that day was aroun

  July 22, 2009

• Road Test: Brutal NBA Swing Opens With 3-0 Suns at 3-0 Heat

  www.nba.com/heat Miami's Dwyane Wade is the newest member of the NBA's 10,000-point club.​ 3-0 to start the season? Even against poor-to-middling competition (L.A. Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves), we'll take it, though we're not deluding ourselves. The other athletic shoe's about to drop on the Phoenix Suns, thanks to the NBA's Special Department of Torture (a.k.a. the schedulers). Tonight, Phoenix starts one of those harrowing road swings the NBA's infamous fo

  November 3, 2009

• Nash Goes Off for 30, and the Suns Open a Grueling Road Trip with a Win over the Heat

  www.nba.com/suns Steve Nash: 35 is the new 25.​One of the big questions about the Phoenix Suns heading into this season was: Did 35-year-old Steve Nash have enough left in the tank to carry the Suns like the Nash of old? On Tuesday night, the former league MVP certainly had plenty in the tank as he sparked a crazy second-half rally in the Suns' 104-96 win over the Miami Heat in Miami. Nash was positively Nash-ian on Tuesday: He penetrated, he dashed, he dished, he launched three-pointe

  November 4, 2009

• The Streak's Over: Even Ex-Sun Matt Barnes Looked Like an All-Star in Phoenix's Blowout Road Loss to Magic

  NBA.com Dwight Howard doing his Superman impression at the All-Star Game.It was only a matter of time. Yeah, the Phoenix Suns were 4-0 going into last night's game with Superman and the Orlando Magic -- the man of steel being everybody's favorite basketball star nowadays, Dwight Howard. And Howard & Co. didn't disappoint their legion of fans, who believe their team has the deepest roster in the NBA this year and will win it all, though they certainly bummed us out. See, we

  November 5, 2009

• One-Loss Suns Try to Keep it That Way With Games in Boston and D.C. Lotsa Luck!

  Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen are next on the Suns' docket. ​ After getting peppered on Wednesday night by the Orlando Magic, the 4-1 Phoenix Suns continue their beast-of-an-East-Coast swing with one super toughie and one winnable one. (If, that is, they don't go all 2008-09 Suns.) First up is tonight's clash with the 6-0 Boston Celtics. This will be the Suns' first look in '09 at the team that has retained much of its nucleus from the 2007-08 NBA Championship-winning squad.

  November 6, 2009

• Phoenix Suns Top Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards in Weekend Wins. Next Up: Philadephia

  www.nba.comJason Richardson scored big against the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards this weekend.​Going into their current five-game jaunt up and down the East Coast, the Phoenix Suns were expected to be butchered by such powerhouse teams as 2008 NBA champs Boston in a basketball bloodbath. Almost every wag in sports punditry and the blogosphere was predicting such a slaughter, especially after Steve Nash and his boys experienced a major meltdown against Orlando last week. As it

  November 9, 2009

• High-Flying Suns Wrap Up 4-1 East Coast Swing with 119-115 Win Against 76ers

  www.nba.com/sunsJason Richardson: Another high-scoring effort.​Even the most fanatical of Suns worshippers couldn't have imagined such an outcome. A weeklong five-game road trip to the East Coast, including bouts against powerhouses Boston and Orlando, wrapping up with four wins for the Suns? Believe it. The Phoenix Suns are for real and have to be considered viable contenders in the Western Conference after a come-from-behind, gutty 119-115 win over the Philadelphia 76ers in Philly on Monday

  November 10, 2009

• Don't Drink the Orange Kool-Aid Yet. Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant Are Coming Right Up.

  Steve Nash and the Suns have found success in scrappiness.​Just two weeks ago, in our secret heart of hearts, we were ready to consign 35-year-old Steve Nash to the dustbin of history. Unless you're Steve Nash's mom, you were, too. Be honest. Then came that last-minute beauty shot in the regular-season opener against the Clippers, the 20-assist game against Golden State, the 30 points and four treys against Miami, and the massive 21 point/20 assist effort to lead the Suns back from what look

  November 11, 2009